Bottling up their talent

Honing skills

Years of professional art training enabled her to execute the drawing of human figures with power and precision.

Whenever she finished a piece, she would show it to her father for advice, which helped her to make great strides in her work.

"Li Shaoyue's fine brushwork, outlining, and rhythmic strokes in her ink paintings greatly resemble those of her father," says Wang.

He considers her works an achievement of meticulous fine-line sketching.

Sun Hongwei, a local senior interior painting artist, says the lines Li Shaoyue draws are distinctively straight and unwavering, demonstrating true mastery of the delicate painting skills required.

Two years after Li Shaoyue made inroads in interior art, she won the gold prize at the China (Shandong) Arts and Crafts Expo in 2017.

She went on to reap top prizes in the following years for the designs and innovation of her works.

In 2021, she ingenuously used a Moutai liquor bottle, whose inner wall she polished with emery to obtain a translucent texture. Then, treating this liquor bottle as a canvas, she painted a flying celestial figure resembling those at Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, Northwest China's Gansu province.

The creative work was purchased by the liquor company.

Compared with the older generation of artists who tended to focus on traditional themes carrying historical scenes and stories, Li Shaoyue prefers to use modern and vibrant characters, as well as familiar aspects of everyday life, as the subjects of her artwork.

Under her father's guidance, she has broken new ground by integrating interior painting with exterior carving.

"It endows the work with a greater sense of depth and a three-dimensional quality," she explains.

Now, the popularity of her interior painting videos has convinced Li Shaoyue to keep promoting the art and spread its charm to more people.

"The inheritors born after 1990 are few and far between, putting the art at the risk of discontinuation," Li says.

Therefore, she has opened a training program with her father to cultivate potential inheritors while teaching the art at a local vocational school.

When she has time, she makes a point of traveling to historical sites, all of which she says have been a mine of inspiration for her.

"I'd like to see them in today's setting, so my work can record and reflect time," she says.

"After all, intangible cultural heritage skills require both inheritance and development."